Archive for blame game

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. That's the war cry from the Republicans. It's the tragedy that became a scandal that became a fund raising cause célèbre. Now that the ringleader has been caught, the Republicans don't know what to do. They'd already held seven hearing trying to place the blame on Obama. All seven failed. Then recently, to huge fanfare, Speaker John Boehner named a special House select committee to try to pin blame on the president. Then the inevitable happened. Obama rained on their parade. He authorized the capture of Benghazi mastermind, Ahmed abu Khatallah.

So first the Republican alarmist tried to diffuse and obfuscate the capture by questioning the timing. It had to do with Hillary Clinton's going on CNN and Fox News to talk about her book sales. Really? Like Obama would really time the capture to coincide with a book signing tour for Hillary Clinton? C'mon Republicans, you can do better than that.

And they tried. They then claimed that Al Qaeda ringleader Ahmed abu Khatallah wasn't really hiding. He could have been captured earlier. This guy was so visible he was even giving interviews to news journalist over the past two years. The administration was dragging its feet because they knew he'd blow the lid on how Al Qaeda was planning the Benghazi attack for weeks and it had nothing to do with an anti-Muslim video as the US had initially claimed immediately after the attack.

So why hadn't the administration captured or killed abu Khatallah? What were they waiting for? Were they afraid he would prove Obama lied and was involved in a cover-up?

Unlike the October 5, 2013 capture Abu Anas al-Libi, an accused planner of the 1998 al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the authority to capture abu Khatallah did not derive from the congressional authorization to go to war against al Qaeda.

While House and Senate investigators have said their probes have turned up evidence that the Benghazi attacks were coordinated and planned by people working with al Qaeda affiliates, the U.S. intelligence community has not determined that abu Khatallah was himself connected to al Qaeda. Without such a connection, the U.S. president was not authorized to kill or capture him under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force against al Qaeda.

So, we followed the law. And while we were gathering information, collecting evidence against the Benghazi ringleader, we had him on our radar and were shadowing him, getting Intel on him and his cohorts. Evidence that would be crucial during the trial and also lead to other arrests/captures as Obama promised the night of the attacks.

As for the reason abu Khatallah has given for the Benghazi attack he's accused of masterminding that killed the four Americans? According to the New York Times:

But Mr. Abu Khattala told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.

This all leads back to square one. Obama told the truth as he knew it. Hillary Clinton told the truth as she knew it. And Susan Rice delivered the truth as it was known at the time on the Sunday Talkers.

Where's all this leave the House special committee? In the toilet, where they belonged in the first place.

Another snark-filled guest post by the one, the only Will Durst, who's having a little fun with Eric Cantor's stunningly humiliating defeat. Or as Will calls it, "feeding the beast that ends up devouring you." Speaking of devouring, with his usual snark, Durst does just that to the paraphrased headlines "Cantor Eats Crow." And speaking of eating, welcome to another episode of Republicans Eating Their Own. Take it away, Will:

CROW MEDIUM RARE

A massive Earthquake rolled through the Republican Establishment after Eric Cantor became the 1st sitting House Majority Leader to lose in a primary since, well… ever. Going back to 1899, the 19th Century. Back when Mugwumps bought buggy whips and the Emperor of Russian lunched with the Viceroy of India.

In terms of wake up calls for GOP incumbents, this elbow to the ribs from the right is the equivalent of having your alarm clock replaced by a battalion of Taiko drummers. In the hold of a container ship. With Marshall amps pinning the red and the reverb switched to infinity sustain.

GOP insiders offered a number of theories for the upset. Bad polling. Disconnection with base. Low voter turnout. Democrats in an open primary. Ambition the size of Montana. Didn’t get as many votes as the other guy. Butterfly ballots. Michelle Obama. The World Cup. Approaching El Nino.

But mostly: back when he was midwifing their birth in 2009, Cantor was considered very very Tea Party. Now, not so much. Classic case of feeding the beast that ends up devouring you. Kind of a Siegfried and Roy sort of thing. “Eric Cantor the RINO.” You got to admit: that’s pretty humorous. Like saying… Dick Cheney the Peacenik or Colonel Sanders the vegan.

Let this be a lesson to all squishy moderates out there: the Tea Party has the same tolerance for tolerance that SWAT teams have for swatting. The Redneck Taliban. Though responsible for scuttling the Boehner/ Obama Grand Bargain and fanning the flames of the government shutdown, Cantor might have read the word “compromise” in a book once. And that is unacceptable.

Don’t you get it? That anti- colonial socialist Obama is ruining the country and if you don’t think so, you don’t love America enough and can go back to Europe and eat crescent rolls on your 6 week vacation.

The man who would be Speaker lost his 7th District Virginia Congressional seat by 11 points to Dave Brat, a doctor of economics who teaches at Randolph- Macon College in Ashland Virginia, a private Methodist liberal arts college 92 miles from the US Capitol. And who, in November’s general election, will be facing a Democrat named Jack Trammell, a doctor who teaches sociology at Randolph- Macon College in Ashland Virginia. Guess you could call their upcoming debates a partial Randolph- Macon College faculty retreat.

The New York Times calculated Cantor spent more money at steakhouses than Brat raised for his whole campaign. But that is simply not true. Cantor only spent $168,000 at various DC meat palaces while Brat raised close to $200,000. So, the Congressman only spent 17/20th on scorched cow flesh compared to what Brat raised. The irony is, now, all Eric Cantor gets to eat is crow.

Of course Brat only used $123,000 of that two hundred grand in his campaign, which gets us to the Times claim, but that’s nitpicking. Nitpicking, being a grand Washington hobby, which Cantor might want to pick up, seeing as he has some unexpected free time on his hands.

Who knows what the future holds for John Boehner’s former go- to- guy. Cantor could become a lobbyist or a consultant. He might even want to write a paper on climate change. After all, who else could provide such a first hand eyewitness account… of hell freezing over?

Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed political comic. Go to willdurst.com to find about more about his new one- man show “BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG,” info about the documentary film “3 Still Standing,” and a calendar guide to personal appearances including June 20 & 21 in Winters & San Rafael.

A major advantage of having a Twitter pal like the wonderful Lalo Alcaraz (@LaloAlcaraz) is that he generously shares his work with us. In his comic strip today, Lalo zeroed in on the dreaded GOP Blame Obama (aka Obama Derangement) Syndrome. You may have noticed that they blame him for:

their own filibustery dysfunction, including the government shutdown

for killing immigration reform

for the tragedy at Benghazi!!!! (with lots of !!!s)

for turning the IRS into his own personal attack dog with an Enemies List that includes only poor innocent conservative groups

for planning a Big Government Takeover using Big Evil Obamacare as the Big Evil Gateway

for George W. Bush's crashed economy

for massive-- massive, I tells ya!-- unemployment

for hating women and killing their babies... especially African American women's babies

for a "feckless" foreign policy that was clearly the cause of Putin's grab of Crimea

for Iraq's woes

for Syria's woes

for their own personal woes

for being so gay that he's anti-straight

for the appalling response to Hurricane Katrina

for a "skyrocketing" deficit

for being a socialist

for being anti-free market

for being anti-Israel

for being anti-American

for being so black that he's anti-white

for not being black enough

for being an anti-Christian Muslim terrorist who wants to take over the world with Al Qaeda

I'm sure I've left out a few blames and labels, but that's plenty for now. The projection and hypocrisy are jaw-dropping and endless, even laughable in a really sad way. To recap the obvious, Republicans have made a cottage industry out of contradicting themselves and pointing their fingers at others.

I think that the problem we have is an opportunity gap, not an income equality gap. And I think that one of the big discussions in conversations over the course of the next two years in national politics is going to be, do you want mediocrity or do you want greatness? You want income equality? That's mediocrity. Everybody can have an equal mediocre salary. That's what we can afford. Or do you want the opportunity for greatness? ...

Greatness is going to be based on your intellect, your hard work, your creativity. And government can play a role in helping to create that opportunity. But not in being the perpetual referee of what sounds like a fight between my 13-year-old son and my 10-year-old daughter: "You did this for him, that's not fair. Well, that's not fair, I want this to be fair." I grew up in an America that said, "Life isn't fair."

Yes, you heard right: Chris Christie is confusing income equality with salary equality. He thinks Democrats want every employed person in the country to be paid exactly the same salary.

Then he had the unmitigated gall to compare struggling families, people who are hurting, with petulant children, in effect blaming them!

To paraphrase Keith Olbermann, "That man is an idiot."

Here's a bonus video from The Rachel Maddow Show, just in case you're not up on the latest in the Bridgegate scandal:

The New Jersey State Republican Party is now trying to raise money on the Bridge scandals. Specifically, they are trying to raise money by saying that news organizations should not be covering the scandal, and that's the real problem here.

Seriously, I'm not kidding... This is from the Star Ledger... They're quoting a fundraising email that the New Jersey Republican Party has sent out asking people to pledge $25 a month to the New Jersey Republican Party because of the Bridge scandal....

"Send us money because MSNBC keeps reporting on this story"??

To the people of Fort Lee, to the people who missed the first day of school or the first day of work, to the people who were late to appointments or their jobs by hours, for not just one day but for four days, to the person having a heart attack and the four people who were injured and needed to be moved by ambulance after a car wreck, to the parents of a missing child, to all those people who found that police and first responders could not get to them those days, to the people of Fort Lee and the hundreds of thousands of other New Jersey residents and commuters who had four days of this gridlock inflicted on them-- on purpose-- thanks to still-unexplained orders that came out of Gov. Christie's office, to all of the hundreds of thousands of people who were hurt here-- on purpose-- the New Jersey Republican Party would like you to know that the real outrage here is that this TV network [MSNBC] is reporting on what happened and trying to figure out the answers, but the Christie administration still won't provide.

They want you to know that we're the real outrage, and that they're the real victim. Not you.

They want the people of New Jersey to stand up! Not against this kind of corrupt and abusive outrageby their government. They want the people of New Jersey to stand up against us covering the story.